Challenged by a comment on my original “Open Communion” post to view the Book of Acts as “more or less one long baptismal narrative,” I went back to my Bible to see what light the Acts of the Apostles might shed on my understanding of baptism and its relationship to Communion.
There are 28 uses of the Greek verb baptizmo or the noun baptisma in the 28 chapters of Acts.
Of those 28 references to baptism:
4 refer specifically to what the author calls “baptism with the Holy Spirit.”
9 refer to baptism by John the Baptist which is usually qualified as “baptism for repentance.”
15 refer to baptism of adults who have made a mature profession of faith, with the hint that, due to their association with the male head of the house, children may also have been baptized as part of “the household.”
The first thing that is evident looking at the Book of Acts is that those of us who practice infant baptism have a major problem if we rely on it to make the case for our baptismal practice or to establish the essential pattern for Christian discipleship. Acts is a fairly anarchic book following the pattern of God’s Spirit who “blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.” (John 3:8)
But what about the connection in the Book of Acts between baptism and Christian initiation?
As far as I can see, in the Book of Acts, baptism is not initiation into anything. It is a seal of that into which the person has laready been initiated by God’s Spirit. It emobdies a reality that has already taken place.
Baptism in Acts is a sign that a person has experienced the liberating presence of God’s Spirit at work in their life. The author of the Book of Acts tells a story in which adults discover a faith previously unknown; they discover faith in Jesus. This is something completely new. As an acknowledgement of this new thing into which, by God’s Spirit, they have been born as adults, they accept baptism in water. There is no indication at all that anyone viewed baptsim as a means of joining anything. They were joined to Christ by faith. Baptism in Acts followed the heart decision to trust in Jesus.
Certainly, in the Book of Acts, there is no reference whatsoever to any connection between Baptism and Eucharist.
Strangely, in the Book of Acts there are only three possible references to anyone sharing in Eucharist – Acts 2:46; 20:11; 27:35. In none of these passages is there the slightest hint that anyone checked to see if every recipient had been duly baptized.
If Acts 27:35-37 is in fact a reference to Paul celebrating the Eucharist on board a stricken ship, verses 36, 37 seem to suggest that the meal was shared with everyone on board – “We were in all 276 persons in the ship”. Everyone certainly ate. Since many on the ship were Roman soldiers and sailers this could suggest the inclusion of the non-baptized.
It is not clear to me that the church has ever fully derived its baptismal understanding from the Book of Acts, or indeed the New Testament as a whole.
I am not enough of an historian to know when the link between baptism as the necessary prerequisite became enshrined in church tradition. But the stipulation that baptism is the essential requirement before Eucharist is made available is not clear to me in the New Testament and the arguments from church tradition have not been suitably demonstrated to my satisfaction.
I remain bewildered that a person who comes with a genuinely open heart to receive the grace of Christ in bread and wine should be excluded from that grace simply because they have not yet had their faith embodied in the rite of baptism.
Baptism is a complex sacrament. It functions on a multitude of levels and embodies a variety of meanings.
When I batpize an infant, I am acknowledging and affirming that this child is created in the image of God and has had the good fortune to have been born into a context of some degree of faith, even if that faith appears to be frail and imperfect. In the sacramental act of baptism, a mysterious unfolding of the journey into Christ is deepened and enriched in the child’s life. The child is sealed as Christ’s own. Whether this reality is acknowledged in the child’s later life, ignored, or even denied, it cannot be undone.
When an adult comes for baptism, the meaning is somewhat different. An adult who presents himself for baptism is doing so in response to the prompting of God’s Spirit. The adult baptismal candidate is affirming faith in Christ, acknowledging this faith publicly and joining in the Church’s prayer that his journey may be deepened and strengthened. The adult baptismal candidate is accepting that the faith he has declared, connects him to a vast community of faith and he is choosing to journey together with the body of believers.
It is not clear to me what it is about any of these understandings that makes baptism essential to reception of the Eucharist.
If baptism is the gateway to the sacrament of Eucharist, why is it not the gateway to the rest of the church’s sacramental acts? Should the priest pause and ask the unbaptized to leave the room when peforming the sacramental act of pronouncing absolution following the General Confession? Should we forbid the sacrament of marriage in the church to anyone who is not baptized? Should we refuse to anoint a sick person because they are unbaptized?
I find it difficult to understand the risks entailed in giving Christ to anyone who comes with enough faith to open their hands and their hearts to receive the grace of Christ in bread and wine.
Drawing lines in the sand is always a tricky business. The exercise of selecting who is in and who is out is fraught with danger.
Where does the making of distinctions stop?
In his May 2, 2010 letter to the Armed Forces Chaplains Board of the US Military in response to the proposed changes to the Military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy, the Primate of the Orthodox Church in America, Metropolitan Jonah wrote,
The Orthodox Church unequivocally condemns homosexual activity between males or females, as it also condemns promiscuous activity and fornication between persons of the opposite sex, based on Holy Tradition, particularly the Holy Scriptures and the Church canons. Orthodox teaching is clear and firm, because such activity is not only sinful, but ultimately self-destructive. Those who engage in such activity are excluded by the Canons from the sacraments of the Church. A “gay” identity is not recognized or accepted by the Church Fathers, for it entails a complete submission of oneself to a sinful state of self-delusion.
Once we start taking stands about who qualifies for which sacraments, we may find some cherished parts of our family drawn outside the circle of our welcoming embrace. Eternal immutable patterns discerned by human reason and embodied in human ritual, no matter how ancient, risk quenching the free movement of God’s Spirit and becoming a dogma of practice.
In A Spacious Place 
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
March 18, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Wind Horse
“I remain bewildered that a person who comes with a genuinely open heart to receive the grace of Christ in bread and wine should be excluded from that grace simply because they have not yet had their faith embodied in the rite of baptism.”
I think perhaps I see the source of our disagreement. Are you saying that the grace of Christ is withheld from someone who opens their heart in yearning for communion with God just because they do not receive the Eucharistic elements? Surely this can’t be true. If the Church were the only means of Grace in the world and the sacraments were the only means of Grace in the church then perhaps I could see where your compassionate stance would make sense. But is that really your position?
If the position you are arguing against is about gate-keeping the saving love of Jesus Christ then we are in agreement. But I do not subscribe to that understanding of the church or its sacraments and I still think that there is something to be said for Baptism before Eucharist. It is simply not true that the church is the gatekeeper for relationship with God – and as difficult as it might be for us to see people use the church for this purpose I do not think it is ultimately constructive in letting this kind of consciousness dictate the terms of our own understandings.
March 19, 2011 at 6:25 am
inaspaciousplace
“Are you saying that the grace of Christ is withheld from someone who opens their heart in yearning for communion with God just because they do not receive the Eucharistic elements?”
If Eucharist conveys a particular grace, which I believe it does, and we bar a person from sharing in the Eucharist then yes we are withholding the grace of Eucharist from that person.
Are we withholding all grace? Of course not. Without the movement of grace at work in their heart no one would come to the table asking to receive the grace of Eucharist.
I choose to trust the work of grace in a person’s life, even when it does not conform to a predetermined pattern, no matter how venerable that pattern may be.
The grace of Eucharist is not bound by the grace of Baptism; neither is diminished by the absence of the other. They are unique rites each with its own depth, power, beauty, and grace. I rejoice in both and trust God’s Spirit to shape the order in which they occur in a particular person’s life.